I put this in Badassity, but it probably belongs at least as much in Antimustachian Wall of Shame.
I found $5000 yesterday. When we moved to Europe, we set up a bank account into which we transfer money automatically each month. This is then used to auto pay our rent and a few other bills. The transfer is in dollars, but the bills are in Euros. So when we set up the dollar amount, we erred on the side of caution, knowing that it the Euro rose a bit, we could end up short if we cut it close.
Since then, the Euro/dollar has dropped not-insignificantly, making that transfer amount even more padded. I was vaguely aware that we had this account and that there was a cushion in it. Shame on me for not checking it regularly for fraudulent activity, but after the initial set up, we just sort of let it do its thing and forgot about it.
Due to the moving around of some money, it occurred to me to check the rent account. I was expectign maybe $1000. It has a balance of ~$8000. A transfer had just gone in and rent and bills not yet paid, so that's artificially high, but about $5500+ of that is comfortably extra. It's difficult to get money out of that account without paying fees, so I think I'm just going to cancel the next (or maybe next two) deposits. That means I don't get that money today, but I'm super excited to dump it onto the HELOC or invest it.
It's so nice that our financial situation is such that having that money just hanging out, forgotten, means nothing to us. We lost some opportunity cost on it, so shame on me, but what a nice position to be in.
